tour, so we’re really happy and thankful for everyone who’s coming out for the tour. And we hope to have these collaborations in the future as well.ĭo you have a special message for fans in the United States?Īmi: It’s been 10 years since last U.S. For others -– Kouki from Okamoto’s for example, they’re a younger, newer style of band, so we take these influences and differences and make it a part of our music too, and it helps us to evolve and grow over the ages. How does working with different musicians and producers bring out different parts of personality, and how does it change your performance style?Īmi: For Okuda-san, he’s our producer so we’ll always be influenced by him no matter what. You’ve had a lot of really interesting collaborations in your career - you’ve worked with talented people like Tamio Okuda and, recently, Kouki from Okamoto’s at Anime Boston. If, for example, we are a color, we would be white – but we want to pull a lot of rainbow colored things into ourselves, we always want to do new things, and it’s boring to stick to one sound. Yumi: We try to do a lot of new things, and we don’t want to be stuck into one genre. How would you describe the “Puffy AmiYumi” sound. There’s ska punk influence, 70s glam, for example. On the EP, there are a lot of different music styles represented. The other 2 songs on the EP, “Colorful Wave Surfers” and “Coco Hawaii” - were you thinking a lot about vacation while making the EP?Īmi: We would always like to go on vacation! Especially for “Coco Hawaii”, that was made for a TV program about vacationing in Hawaii. And everything else was really fun though. We hadn’t danced for a while, so it took a while to get the moves down. Yumi: The most memorable part was the dance, because the two of us don’t dance very often. What was the best part about shooting it? So there’s not a direct meaning, because there’s no strong meaning behind the name, but we do get asked about it. And we didn’t know what it means either! But it sounded good so we went along with it.Īmi: For the video, it was directed by a 2-person unit called Suminemu, and one of them is an idol named Nemu (Yumemi Nemu), she basically drew out everything she wanted the two of us to do on a piece of paper - and it was already that kind of strange world that she played out for us. We didn’t write the lyrics, but when the songwriter Hyadain (Kenichi Maeyamada) -– he was the one behind the song - when he submitted the lyrics, the title was “PAFFIPIPOYAMA”. Yumi: Actually, how the song title came about, was that we released a song as part of our twentieth anniversary celebration. What’s the meaning of the title, and how does it connect to the crazy visuals in the video? Let’s talk about your video and recent EP, “PAFFIPIPOYAMA”. In that sense, because we were working together so long, only we know it feels to be Puffy AmiYumi – in a way no one else in the world, even our families, would understand. As our careers progressed, we realized that we had to be business partners as well. Since you’ve been working together a long time, your relationship must be like family, How has that relationship evolved and grown over the years?Īmi: When we first started, we were really close as friends – we got together because we were really good friends. A lot also has to do with the cartoon, that helped with our popularity. We’re happy to have that base, the good music to back that up. But in the U.S., before people got to know us, the music was the first thing that came in. How do you feel about your long-term popularity here in America?Īmi: You know, a lot of fans in Japan - and regular people also - know us aside from the music, because we both have unique personalities. You’ve been popular in the United States for many years. JRock247 had the opportunity to talk with Ami and Yumi before their performance at the historic Belasco Theater in Los Angeles as part of their 2017 tour - their first time performing in the U.S. Puffy AmiYumi first gained notoriety in the early 2000s as breakthrough artists from Japan, with their own animated series on Cartoon Network and multiple tours. Interview by DJ Greg Hignight ( Tune in Tokyo) and David Cirone
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